Choice
by Roadstergal
Summary: Rimmer's thoughts during the euology in Stoke Me A Clipper. Angsty unrequited slash.


Mum always said I would be late for my own funeral. I was never good enough for her, and my spotty punctuality was part of that. I think it was just passive aggression on my part; punctuality is terribly important for me, and ever since I left home, I have been either on-time or early for everything. So I actually was bang-on time for my own funeral. I would love to have a chance to shove _that_ down her throat.

Cat is late. No surprise. You want to wait for him, so I sit, jiggling my legs. Glaring at your cherubic face.

It really should have been my choice.

Maybe you think I can't do that. You think Arnie J. is too much of a coward or a simpleton to make his own choices. I bet you think I would elect to stay here by default, to leave the universes without an Ace. But isn't that _my_ choice? Would that really be so bad? I know you loved him. Loved that smegging alternate version of me that was just even more gittish and stuck-up than I am. You never understood that I just do not _like_ the bastard, and it ripped at my guts to see you and him cuddling and canoodling. I think that you think that I wanted to be him. No, I wanted you to hate him as much as I did.

Now you've made me him. You had no _right_.

Maybe I was too subtle. God, it was uncomfortable admitting to myself that I wanted you. I was a right bastard while I struggled with it, I bet. But what can you expect? I'm straight, and I have my standards. Do you think it's easy for a guy like me to admit that I want someone as grotty as you? To admit that I'm in love with the most disgusting man ever to share a room with me? How _did_ you fart your way into my heart? I stopped trying to analyze it when I died for the second time. I accepted it, just as I accepted the reality that some things - my future self, for one - are worse than death. But when I finally came to terms with it, you were too busy twisting causality to have your curry and banging artificial women in AR, weren't you? I tried, I did. I only insulted you once each morning. I kept you company at the midsection table, reading while you slopped your way through the lunch you insisted on calling breakfast. I even touched your hand, once or twice, trying to keep... all of this ambiguous enough for it to be considered an accident.

Maybe I was not subtle enough. Maybe my message came through loud and clear, and I'm just not your type. You make it plain that you still long for sodding Kochanski, who you dated for all of three smegging weeks before she dumped you. I've been with you for far longer, you bastard, and you never looked at me twice. You'd rather mosey off to AR to do computer sprites than do your shipmate, wouldn't you. Those blasted pipes let me know every time you took another cold shower, and I had to sit in my bunk and listen to them bang and clonk, dreaming of yanking you out of your libido-draining session and running my fingers over your shivering wet skin, licking off the droplets that would cling to your lips, warming you with my own body. Nice fodder for masturbation, it was, although I was starting to suffer from carpal tunnel. Maybe you heard me through those too-thin walls. I can't have been that subtle. You must have known.

This whole Ace business must be a relief, then. A chance to ameliorate a situation that was becoming increasingly uncomfortable for you. Damn it, all you had to do was tell me you didn't want my... hints. If you had told me no, do you think I would have kept at it? I do have some pride, you know. You didn't have to twist and turn and jam me into this gold flightsuit and drop-kick me out of the airlock.

Cat's arrival cuts this train of thought short, mercifully. But god, no - Kryten has just asked you to give the eulogy. That bastard junk-heap mechanoid can rot in silicon hades for all he does to make my death a living hell. I cringe at the thought of what you'll say, and you don't disappoint. Rachel is hopelessly punctured from late-night love-doll football games and long gone on Red Dwarf, so I don't know where you got _that_ one from. Pretty fucking funny, though, that joke. Thanks for the hint.

Yes, I succeeded at keeping you sane. Mission accomplished. Give me a nice little pip that means nothing anymore, and toss me off of the ship. Yes, it's him, and you know it, but from what you have said, the way you do not touch the bee as Kryten puts the pips in it, the way you place the coffin so clinically into the waste unit, I can see that to you, right now, it's me. I realize something else, as well, as you push the cycle button on the Waste Disposal Unit and toss... me... away. This is the way you want it to end. I was not considerate enough to die for your convenience, when my function was filled and I was superfluous, an appliance that was no longer needed and was becoming embarrassingly needy and close. And so Ace has once again one-upped me, raising himself in your eyes and diminishing me. He has died, as I did not have the good sense to, and left you free.

No, it is not my choice, is it. I was brought back to serve you. Now that you do not need or want me, it's your choice to be rid of me.

I still have my pride. I'll pretend I want to leave as much as you want me to. Maybe you'll find fecking Kochanski, and bugger off to Fiji and have babies and a donut stand. I'll be off in pieces, orbiting a garish pink planet. I'm no hero. I won't last a year. But what else do I have, now?

"It's been a blast, fellas..."


End file.
